The McLaren driver, Lando Norris, also received the call from the stewards for a similar action, as highlighted in the FIA statement in which you could read “alleged infringement by cars 44 and 4 of article 33.4 of the FIA F1 sporting regulations and breach of race director’s note; driving unnecessarily slow.”
Those notes read as follows: “to ensure that cars are not driven unnecessarily slow during qualifying or recce laps for the race, drivers must stay below the maximum time set by the FIA between the safety car lines that are shown on the pitlane map.”
After qualifying at the Spanish Grand Prix, the stewards noted a total of 55 such infringements by 18 drivers, but the most serious were Kevin Magnussen and Mick Schumacher, who received a warning.
Before meeting with the Baku stewards, Hamilton assured that he had stayed within the delta, as well as adding that he had been off the racing line.
“We are one of the slowest on the straight,” he said when asked about it by Motorsport.com. “So I needed a slipstream. The rule is you have to be within your delta time between the two safety car lines.”
“I was inside my delta. I slowed down and disconnected, I was completely off the racing line, to let the other cars pass. But they didn’t want to pass.”
“So this is when you remember Barcelona, there were cars that just completely ignored the delta and drove ridiculously slow. I think one or two of them were penalized with a reprimand.
“At that time they were much, much, much slower. They must have gained at least five degrees of temperature in the tyres.”
“And that’s why they were so fast on their laps. But I remember when they were so slow, I dodged them, so I didn’t have a problem.”
“But anyway, I wasn’t below my delta today. Plus I was out of the way, it wasn’t an unsafe or dangerous action.”
Asked if he thought he would avoid the penalty, Hamilton said: “I don’t think I did anything wrong. They had the option to pass me but they didn’t. I was in my delta,” the Briton repeated.
